Okay, look, I don't really wan't to get too much further into this, because we basically agree on the essential matters of the project ...<br><br>Having said that, however:<br><br>Just to repeat 'Gizmo's remark, every idea, every development, and every issue along the way has ben dicussed openly in the forum at one time or another.<br><br>Please look at the following threads:<br>HERE,<br>and HERE ...<br><br>and point out where a vote was taken or discussion invited, or where you are invited to not participate if you so choose ...<br><br>Apparently, the assumption was that everybody would be on board with those ideas, and those messages were phrased accordingly - without even the courtesy of *asking* if we were willing to give this information in the first place ...<br><br>As it turns-out, I was able to reach a mutually-agreeable arrangement - but at no time did I feel free to decline altogether to participate in those aspects of the project, which would have been my preference ...<br><br>When no dissent is voiced, you can only assume that there is none.<br><br>Dissent was voiced - just not in public =)<br><br>In the end, though, it's still what it started out to be: a fun and interesting creative project. It just happens that it might make a bunch or $$ for a good cause, and give the Mac some very real and human-scale publicity.<br><br>Well, obviously the first sentence is up to one's personal pov ... =)<br><br>As for the second, well, it really doesn't matter how good the project is, or how noble its intentions ... you still should really ask people if they would like to give-out thier personal information rather than assume they are willing to do so ... as a mere courtesy, if nothing else ...<br><br>I apologise for getting into this stupid issue probably deeper than it needs to go, but it has been sticking in my craw for a while now, and I needed to get it out ...<br><br>=)<br><br>Cheers!<br><br>***matt<br><br>

Too many posts to respond to, and so, in general:<br><br>1. I gave a tile to project. My obligations were over. Period.<br><br>2. All sorts of ideas were discussed, many quite good. It's suggested if I voiced concerns they would have been addressed. Nonsense. The MC thing is majority rule, which is fine. Mandate all you like. The point is: I don't mandate to you, you don't mandate to me. Simple?<br><br>3. My uncle has cerebal palsey. It is a great cause. So what? This same mozaic is pro-MC, which I don't feel is necessarily a great cause.<br><br>4. A few fools in this thread suggest I wrote a vindictive bio and that I'm not telling you the whole story. Earth to fools: I did admit to such a 'snotty' bio. Read my initial post if you don't believe me. It's sitting right there. You'll also see it was my second bio. The first one was a few short lines addressing the provided questions. There was nothing snotty about those words. They were perfectly usable. Why didn't MC use them? In fact, I later suggested they simply post my virtual name and the title "Santa Monica Sunset". Why didn't they do that?<br><br>5. Some other fools percieved my lack of responses to my MC PM's as an 'up yours' instead of seeing them for what they are: PMs to someone who rarely visits MC anymore. When sent a direct email, I responded immediately.<br><br>6. There is plenty of room to debate whether or not I should be forced to provide my real name. The point is, I never agreed to it, and I asked previously, I probably would have refused to contribute. How simple is that?<br><br>7. If I had an axe to grind against MC, I would have said, "Use my snotty bio OR I'm pulling my tile out!!!" I never shanghai-ed the blessed Mozaic this way. When they were free to reject my snotty bio, instead of simply rejecting it, they needlessly took it as an opportunity to pull the tile altogether. This best exemplifies what is worst about MC.<br><br>8. I invite you to a potluck dinner. I say bring whatever you want. You bring a lazanga. Guess what? You're done. Thank you. You don't have to clean dishes. Print your recipe in a book. Sign the book. Write a bio that meets my needs. Oh, and if I was rude to you at my potluck dinner, and you made it clear to me you felt offended, I wouldn't ask a damn thing of you. But that's just me..<br><br>Do you rhumba? Excellent! Now pick a rhumba and sit down.. GM

<blockquote><font size=1>In reply to:</font><hr><p>Dissent was voiced - just not in public =)<p><hr></blockquote><p>But that's my point. If you had a strong POV, you really should have brought it up in the forum so that it could have been a broader discussion. Look, anytine you put 35 people in a boat for the first time, everyone's gonna handle the oars their own way, so it's no surprize that not everyone feels the same way about this. But, as you said, you were able to work out a satisfactory solution, whereas NTO1 chose to be darn near inflexible. If we ever do something like this again, we'll know where the quicksand and landmines are. <br><br>In the meantime, get yourself a talent agent, 'cause I heard that NBC is thinking about basing a new soap opera on us. It's gonna be called As The Stomach Turns<br><br>

Hey, don't get me wrong - I'm not necessarily defending the way NTO1 handles things - I simply don't have the info to judge one way or another ...<br><br>Just that he had a legitimate beef to begin with ...<br><br>As for bringing it up my concerns in the public forum: I would have had they not been addressed privately ... laundry should not be washed in public until the machine breaks down =)<br><br>In the meantime, get yourself a talent agent, 'cause I heard that NBC is thinking about basing a new soap opera on us. It's gonna be called As The Stomach Turns<br><br>I already got one - she says I get 10% of the gross plus points =)<br><br>***matt<br><br>

Not pointed at anyone.<br><br>Our first Mosaic did go pretty smooth with its ever growing changes. With 35 people and corporations all with their list of concerns the Mosaic project went very well.<br><br>Started out as an art project YES, but has also grown into project of working together for a common goal.<br><br>The Mosaic is no longer a Simple Collection of Art---Mosaic now has a Heart, feeling, personality, life and now with this event add sorrow, pain, deciet, politics.<br><br>The Mosaic now has a History<br><br>

Don't be a goof. There were 30 posts made to that first thread. You, and I and everyone else knows that constitutes a discussion. If NTO1 didn't want to follow through on ANYTHING he could have easily asked to have his tile removed or voiced his opinion when the thread was active, rather than waiting until now. HE CHOSE to participate, and it evolved into something that obviously was more effort than he wanted to participate in - and that's fine. All he had to do was say something. But he CHOSE to be childish about it because of his distaste for MC.<br><br>You "Felt Free" to participate, so what gave you the idea that you weren't "free" to voice your opinion? You're voicing it now aren't you? Nobody asked for it, but you're voicing it anyway... surely you see what I'm saying here.<br><br>If you or NTO1 voiced dissent to each other, well that was kind of foolish wasn't it. You should have said something to the people organizing the project.<br><br>I'm not trying to pick a fight with you, I just think you're smart enough to know that if you don't like something, you should voice your opinion, rather than waiting for an invitation to do so. I agree that this project was NOT what I signed up for. But it has only required a few more minutes to send my bio. I told Jim I didn't have or want to send my photo and he was cool with it. <br><br>The bottom line is that NTO1 is upset with MC... and he took it out on us (the MosaicProject) which has nothing to do with MacCentral except the fact that happens to be where we all hang-out. And because we hang-out there, JimD and MC decided to help us out with publicity and some of the costs involved. He had every opportunity to stay in the project and voice his opinions, but he chose to let his childish emotions get in the way of it - it's that simple.<br><br>[color:red]semicolon dash parenthesis</font color=red>

Okay, my last post on this because you miss my points ENTIRELY, and I don't know how to express them any better that I have ... I'll try one more time anyway =)<br><br>Basically, I was trying to be fair to NTO1 only insofar as:<br><br>• He was accused of not meeting the requirements or following the "rules" of the project - an accusation which I feel to be untrue in that: he created a tile. In fact, that was pretty much the ONLY thing required of the artists until late in the production process ...<br><br>• It was stated that all decisions of the project were made by a "group decision" - which I also believe to be untrue in that: In at least two instances, ideas were not presented as "whaddya think?" but as "this is being done and we need you to do this" ... to me that is not a group decision, that is a statement of the decision already having been made. Sure you could object - but by no means was the decision arrived at by group consensus ...<br><br>• It was also stated that NTO1 was the only person who had a problem with the newer requirements, which I know for a fact to be untrue ...<br><br>Essentially, I was trying to be objective and felt the need to point out what I believe to be factual errors.<br><br>What I am NOT doing is passing jusgement one way or the other on what happened between NTO1 and whomever he was dealing with. I don't have nearly enough information for that ... and frankly, I couldn't care less one way or the other ...<br><br>Sure, I had my problems with the way some things were handled. I preferred to deal with those problems privately rather than splash them across the forum - and I was able to arrive at an equitable agreement with the person with whom I communicated.<br><br>I have not the slightest clue where you got the impression that I was somehow voicing dissent with NTO1; or the other impression that I had not discussed my concerns with the appropriate folks ...<br><br>So bottom line: I'm neither defending nor attacking NTO1 - just trying to correct what I see as factual inaccuracies of some statements made in this thread. Period.<br><br>And I kind of got into it a little too deep with you and steveg, just because some of those inaccuracies happened to jive with things that had annoyed me personally, and my blood was up =)<br><br>Plus, you guys yak it up pretty good, and I know how much you like to hear yourselves talk ...<br><br>;-D<br><br>There you have it.<br><br>Good night, and have a pleasant tomorrow =)<br><br>***matt<br><br>

(I've been on vacation, and so for anyone who thinks I should have dropped this already, STOP reading this thread. If you read these responses, they clearly interest you.)<br><br>i have no qualms with having my name appear, but i understand that you feel uncomfortable. i liked your tile and think it is a good addition to the mosaic that will benefit the UCP. think about remaining as a part of the project and submitting the necessary information. it won't kill ya! if not...hey, at least it lived up to your original expectations. savor that and step aside.<br><br>Thanks for the kind words Sean. A few responses:<br><br>When I said initially that a sudden requirement surfaced to include my real name, that was an overstatement typed in a fit of confusion and frustration with the Mozaic folk. What I meant to say was that after I completed the Mozaic, again and again I was finding my name needing to be associated with the project. I was asked for my name and address by SteveG and my name was included in my rewritten bio. Perhaps not a requirement, but a repeated request. With the completion of my tile and the events that occurred at MC, I wanted nothing more to do with the damn thing. <br><br>So if I'm supposed to cry a river for poor Shooshie who sent PMs to a forum I no longer visited, and provided him with bios he didn't like, where exactly is MY compassion for being asked to do a myriad of things after my completion of my promised duties? Hey NTO1- we decided we need your name and address please! Hey NTO1- we decided you should answer these questions so I can write a bio. Hey NTO1- we decided that bio wasn't long enough and we've written another, where your membership in MC is the subject of a paragraph, what do you think? Hey NTO1- we decided that your second bio was rather offensive, and instead of reject it, we rejected your tile. <br><br>I contributed as asked, promptly. No one had a problem with the tile. MC had a split. I didn't like it. I went here. I considered taking my tile from the Mozaic, OUT LOUD, but then said it wouldn't be fair to the others. You see, I give a rat's ass about the feelings of others, believe it or not. If I was the impossible, 'self-righteous', 'selfish', 'twerp' I was accused of being, I would have pulled the tile. It wasn't I that tried to use the Mozaic as a sounding post against MC. I wanted to be left alone. It was MC who tried to force a bio on me which suggested I was an active member.<br><br>Again, did MC have to have a bio for me? What's the big freakin deal? Have you ever seen a yearbook with a picture in it that doesn't have a bio? What would a high school yearbook be without one, or five, or twelve?<br><br>Think about that, and think about the MC Mozaic actions. Why didn't Shooshie just say, "Hey PMSboy, you know I can't use this. I'll instead use either your first bio or no bio. Had no idea this upset you so." <br><br>Why did they have to go the next step and just kick me out?<br><br>The way I see it, to needlessly pull someone out of the mozaic ruins it. Leaving it in with a virtual name and a title would have hurt who exactly?<br><br><br><br><br><br>Do you rhumba? Excellent! Now pick a rhumba and sit down.. GM

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